Volume 43,
Issue 2,
2009

Without the contributions of the relevant authors whose specific research is published in this publication and the reviewers who judged the scientific merits of the contributions, this edition of Journal for Language Teaching would not have been possible. I thank you sincerely for this.

Teaching German to learners from a non-Germanic language background has its pitfalls and challenges. In the South African context, knowledge of English plays a significant part, but can also be counter-productive, especially if the lexical similarities are overemphasised and transferred into structural characteristics such as syntax. Creating an awareness of the similarities between German and Zulu specifically in the areas of noun classification and congruence, early on in the learning process should result in positive transfer of Zulu while curbing overuse of English as a crutch.

Against the background of growing concern about the standard of the NSC assessment being lowered for various reasons, including political agendas, the value of proper monitoring mechanisms in the assessment chain cannot be underestimated. In this article these monitoring mechanisms, especially item analysis, are investigated. It is our contention that restoration of the quality of the matriculation examination process is crucially dependent on scrupulous monitoring of the assessment, marking and feedback processes in such a way that may be successfully used to identify and communicate problems as and when they occur in the assessment chain, and to make recommendations regarding strategies that may remedy these problems in future.

This article reports on a series of language activities which were implemented to improve first-year students' writing skills in a South African university. These activities focus on writing skills in literature courses, with specific emphasis on organising and supporting an argument. They were specifically designed on the basis of observations in tutorial lectures and test responses, as well as the principles of constructivism and OBE (outcomes-based education). This article will discuss the design of these activities as well as students' written responses. Based on this explorative analysis, the article aims to suggest areas for future research.

This paper locates autobiography and memoir within the broad definition and study of identity formation and narrating the nation. The validation of autobiography and memoir is to inscribe identity and project voice, through recourse to selective memory, so that the (re)positioning of the self emerges not only as interrogating the period of becoming but also revealing the fragility and elusiveness of that identity. In examining Peter Godwin's two memoirs - Mukiwa and When a crocodile eats the sun - this study insists on the elusiveness of mediated identity relative to the privileges, authority and systems of power articulated by the nation state. In narrating a genealogical self and inscribing its position relative to social, power and political spaces, autobiography and memoir insist on transitory rather than permanent identities that cumulatively shape the narrative identity. This narrative and mediated identity is crucial in its very ambivalent location relative to the nation and those that wield and regulate authority in the same nation space. What emerges is a conflicting version to the grand and authorised narratives of the nation. Mukiwa, for instance, interrogates white Rhodesia - the colonial and colonised space - its legislature and war against the black liberation movements. In this period, power and privilege reside in whiteness because of colonial appropriation. At the end of this autobiography, independence emerges to erase and sanitise the colonial disease; dissenting voices take to reconciliation and prosperity and enterprise are celebrated. In the sequel, When a crocodile eats the sun, the inexorable struggle for independence has shifted power and privilege to black majority. Peter Godwin inserts himself into the political furore of land acquisition in Zimbabwe and adopts a voice and identity whose difference with those in Mukiwa is phenomenal. This paper therefore seeks to examine the (in)consistencies of imagining self and the appropriation of identities in autobiography and memoir. It re-conceptualises the critical dimension of the selectivity of memory in scripting self and seeks to interrogate the multivalent identities that emerge. The dictum that history is scripted from the position of those in power and authority is explored to establish the dynamics of domination and subordination: the spatial, moral, social and political location of the dissident narrator relative to the constituent events of the narrative is crucial to an understanding of the veracity and historicity of autobiography.

The Department of Education, educators, parents and various stakeholders are concerned about the poor reading skills of learners in South African schools. Various national and international studies reveal shockingly low levels of reading proficiency among South African learners. The Department of Education has launched various investigations to establish why the levels of reading proficiencies are so poor. The National Reading Strategy was one of the responses to address their concerns. In order to address this issue effectively, it is imperative that the effective teaching of reading should commence in the Foundation Phase, where the basis for more advanced skills should be established. The purpose of this study was to establish whether the development and implementation of multimedia learning and teaching support material (LTSM) by means of a digital book disc (DBD) would contribute to effective facilitation of reading skills. The results of this study indicate that the integration of the DBD, as a form of multimedia LTSM, effectively supports the facilitation of reading skills.

Providing feedback on student writing is a much debated topic about which one group of researchers argues that it is ineffective, while another group remains convinced that it is, while at ground level teachers and lecturers simply carry on 'marking' texts. The author of this article argues that both sides of the argument have valid contributions to make and used the arguments both for and against feedback to create a checklist for effective feedback practice. Adhering to this checklist should counter most of the arguments against feedback, while supporting and improving the positive arguments for feedback.

This paper takes the form of a critical appraisal of a formative assessment task given to students in an entry-level English for Specific Purposes (ESP) course in an Open and Distance Learning (ODL) context at the University of South Africa (UNISA). The article describes a specific formative assessment task in an ODL learning context and touches on issues of self-regulated learning and appropriation of student writing. Biggs' theory of constructive alignment, which underpins the assignment, requires an evaluation of the degree to which students construct meaning from learning tasks and the extent to which the assessment is synchronised with learning outcomes and learning activities of the course. The assignment described in this article was an outcome of doctoral research (Spencer 1999) which proved empirically the value of requiring both revision and self-assessment in a writing assignment in a distance-teaching context. These statistically significant findings provided empirical support for self-regulated learning and prompted the design of the assignment described in this article.

Close on two decades after the death of Roald Dahl on 23 November 1990, his legacy as a writer of children's books is apparent in the continuing popularity of his work and in the establishment, in 2001, of the Roald Dahl Museum and Story Centre in Great Missenden. The Story Centre itself promotes a love of creative writing through a range of activities for children, which allows them to explore and develop their writing skills. Dahl has left his young and not-so young readers with some memorable characters and situations in tales such as The BFG, Danny the Champion of the World and Fantastic Mr Fox. These three works are fine examples of the timeless quality and appeal that can have a formative influence on the developing young reader. One aspect of this influence is the challenging of established ideas that may perhaps be accepted too easily or uncritically. Another aspect relates to the response of young readers to Dahl's use of language, something that can provide a ready basis for language study in the classroom. The content and style of many of Dahl's stories also make them potentially suitable for young readers whose home language is not English. One may conclude therefore that 'Dahl's Chickens', to quote a spoonerism by the Big Friendly Giant, continue to find a roosting place in the minds and hearts of countless children around the world.

The paper addresses second language teaching of phonetic, phonological and prosodic features in the Sotho-Tswana languages (Southern Bantu) from a linguistic perspective. It motivates the inclusion of phonetic, phonological and prosodic background knowledge in second language teaching, and singles out potential areas of learners' difficulties based on a comparative analysis, assuming a Germanic language as the learner's first language. It adopts the idea that learner problems can be overcome by a mixture of linguistic background explanation and practical, contrast-directed exercises.